


such a fearless soul

by americandy



Series: fear like you [7]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, California, Catelyn finds out, Half-Sibling Incest, Incest, Lots of drinking, M/M, Margaery named her dog Joffrey, Modern Era, Not Beta Read, Sibling Incest, loras and renly are mentions, margaery's back, they show up in the next part
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 01:35:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2090925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/americandy/pseuds/americandy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>margaery, robb, and jon go to the castro and fall in love with it, deciding to relocate for a business venture. before they can go, they must tell catelyn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	such a fearless soul

Sometimes, Jon can't believe this thing has become what it is today. From a brief thought to an uncomfortable subject, from a nightmare to a dream, from pure thought and imagination into real, warm, difficult love. 

Jon can't believe it when he's pressing kisses to every mole on Robb's back, tasting the salt of the sweat on his skin, worked up by both the heat of summer and their choice of activity.

He can't believe the words that tumble out of his mouth sometimes, all for Robb. "I love you", "I would die for you", "There are less stars in the sky than things I like about you". It can get pretty devastatingly saccharine, but why shouldn't love be so sweet? "We're brothers, Jon. Hell-bound." Robb's words echo in his head. It wasn't always sweet; the things Robb used to say were enough for Jon to wish himself dead. 

The things Robb says these days are enough to make Jon feel like he could fly to the moon on the power of love alone. The things he said to his own mother, to begin with. 

\---

"Jon might not be your blood, but he's mine. You've been nothing but vile to the person I've shared everything with. And I do mean everything, mother. I love Jon. I love him like a brother and I love him like a lot more than that too." 

Cate's eyes had welled with tears but she never broke eye contact with Robb while she waited for him to finish. Because she didn’t acknowledge Jon's presence in the slightest, he was free to observe their interaction play out. Her hands balled up into fists and her knuckles turned alabaster, like Robb's complexion can look in the dead of winter. He stood strongly, with squared shoulders, and his voice was proud as he spoke of Jon. Once he'd said all he had to, he turned back to Jon, who nodded imperceptibly at him. 

" ** _No_** ," Catelyn's voice rang out. Jon was reminded of a scene from a Harry Potter film, oddly enough. Ron Weasely, just as ginger as Robb, receiving a howler from his enraged mum. Mrs. Weasley's shrieks had been played for laughs, but there was nothing humorous about their own situation.

“You _will not_ look at him in my presence," she continued, lowering her volume but maintaining a tone so icy Jon could almost feel it bite and sting his cheeks. In response, Robb took three steps back until he was standing in line with Jon. He grabbed his hand, locking their fingers together, no longer the innocent and simple hand hold of youth. Jon could swear Catelyn was shaking, or perhaps just vibrating with rage.

"It's not just Snow, you're both bastards. I should have fucking known. Out of my house, out of your flat, we're through supporting you. We're done seeing you at all."

Robb squeezed Jon's hand gently, reassuring him in the midst of this torrent of awfulness. Jon looked at him and the corner of his mouth turned up, just minutely, the way it does when he knows he's about to win an argument.

"Our flat, actually." Robb said casually. "You've been footing the bill for our little love nest." Cate's face went slack and so did her fists. The tears she had been fighting finally bested her, and a single fat tear rolled down her cheek. 

"Not anymore. You're done, you're out of the will, everything. Wait ‘til your father finds out abo-"

"He already knows." 

" **GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!** ” She absolutely bellowed. Her cheeks became speckled with red and a little spit flew from her mouth and landed on the wood floor. 

Robb tugged Jon by his hand past his mum and down the hallway, turning the corner just in time for an immense crash against the wall. Jon turned around to look at what the source of it had been. The glass sculpture of a wolf that had been on a side table next to her lay in a shattered mess. 

"Did she just try...?" Jon trailed off as they walked briskly down the grand staircase of the north wing.

"It doesn't matter," Robb said quietly. "We'll never see her again." Jon stopped in his tracks completely, and because he was holding hands with Robb, Robb stopped too. Jon let go of his hand and placed his own carefully on either side of Robb's face, holding him gently enough it was like he was afraid of breaking him.

"It will be okay, Robb. It doesn't feel like it now, but it will be okay." Slowly he wrapped his arms around Robb's neck until they were flush, and Robb's own arms wrapped around Jon's waist. He buried his face in his brother's neck, collapsing against him a little bit. They stayed like that for ages, long enough to hear another crash upstairs. Robb pulled back, his eyes a little wet, offering Jon a sad smile. 

"It is time for us to go, little brother." He kissed Jon chastely then, and Jon was more certain than ever they were kismet; old lover's souls from across the universe flung haphazardly into their bodies, meant to be tested by the whole wide world. Incredibly, they survived. They outlasted fear and self-loathing and everything else thrown at them. Robb pulled away again and the smile that graced his features was wider this time, beautiful and honest, all for him.

"Off to America we go, I guess." 

\---

The idea had come to them during a delightfully tipsy conversation with their neighbor, dear Margaery. Her brother Loras and his partner Renly had vacationed somewhere called the Castro and described it as having died and gone to gay heaven. One of the first openly gay politicians in America, a man called Harvey Milk, had lived and campaigned and actually been in office in some position until an asshole firefighter Christian nuclear family type made his way down to the capital and killed both him and the governor. In the wake of Harvey's death, the Castro had bloomed and bubbled into even more of an accepting place than it had been when he lived, and it had become a sort of Mecca for young gay Americans. 

"Roooooobb, I want to go to America," he'd whined, mostly in jest, pecking the littlest kisses on his neck.

"Then I think we very well should," Robb replied. A second later, Margaery flung one of the pillows she'd been cuddled up with at their heads. 

"Oi, you two. Robb, your cheeks are pinker than a pig's bottom. Don't make drunk life choices, at least, not ones that leave me here all by my lonesome."

Robb's eyes lit up. 

"Margy, that's perfect! You come with us! It'll be the ultimate friendship trip." They grabbed the nearest laptop and began to flesh out details and Margaery ran back to hers to get a bottle of champagne to celebrate the advent of the idea. She might not believe in making drunk life choices, but she was world class at drunk agenda planning. 

The Castro was like a dream. A very expensive dream. Jon didn't know it, but Robb had been siphoning money out of his inheritance and into a separate account for when they were inevitably cut off. For when his mother found out, because of course she would. A love like theirs could only fly under the radar for so long. 

Sitting in a gin bar on Haight Street with Margaery, Jon told Robb he wished they could have a place like this. 

"I would live in a closet in the back if I had to. We would obviously call it 'In The North', or 'The North'. Something along those lines."

"You two would be the cutest proprietors in all the land, you know that? Girls and boys would come to gawk at you, and if the motif is anything like your flat, get a taste of rustic and cold ye-olde rich English countryside life." Margaery spoke enthusiastically about the idea. Jon wrapped an arm around her neck and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

"If we moved, I don't know what I would ever do without you, ever in my corner." He said, genuine and deep appreciation in every word.

"Well, I don't know why you would have to worry about that. You'd need me to run a tight ship, you're both far too kind-hearted." She spoke bluntly, and she was right. Jon snorted at her honesty and Robb acquised.

"I suppose you're right, Ms. Tyrell. What say we indulge this little flight of fancy. Are you two down to do some bar shopping?" 

It was more of an undertaking than a lighthearted romp like Jon had been expecting, but after a great deal of wandering down less centrally-located streets, they found an empty place with a sale sign that told of a one bedroom 'apartment' above the space. They paused in front of it, peering inside the darkened room. It looked spacious enough.

Robb, who was standing between Jon and Margaery, looked at either of them. 

"Is this something we're going to do?" He inquired. "We have the best times when we're drinking rosé or Möet and eating well. Why shouldn't we try to give other people those times too?" 

"Robb, are you serious? You want to do this too?" Jon couldn't believe he had just heard those words out of Robb's mouth. 

"Well, yes! What else do we have going on? This could be our chance, Jon. We could make a break for it. Tell my mum and get the hell out." He sounded so hopeful it made Margaery think of little orphan Annie singing "the sun will come out tomorrow". Jon's expression changed completely when Robb mentioned his mother. His face fell the way a dog's does when you hold a piece of food out in front of him only to eat it yourself.

"I completely forgot about what it would take, Robb. If she found out she'd certainly cut you off. How would we pay for this?" His words were solemn.

"Consider me an investor," Margaery said. "I have more money than I know what to do with, and I believe in you two, and I believe in the three of us." 

The brothers were taken aback by her generosity. Robb because he had just imagined scrimping and saving for the rest of his life to make their dream come true and Jon because what had seemed impossible ten seconds ago became wholly viable. He hugged her uncomfortably, with her arms squished to her sides. Once he let her go, Robb decided to reveal his own source of funds.

"Margaery, thank you so much. So so much. However, you won't have to bear the entire financial burden. I've... I've been putting some money from my trust into an account that no one knows about. Every once in a while, just enough off the top to avoid anyone noticing. I wanted to prepare for our future." 

Jon’s eyebrows rose up in the center. Though it was merely about finances, it was the most romantic thing Robb had ever said to him. Their future together was real and the only option he considered viable, and he wanted to be able to live freely with Jon. He loved Robb so much he could break in half, but he settled for kissing him. It wasn’t their first kiss in America, but it was the first one at their new home.

“I would roll my eyes if I didn’t wish I had someone to love me up like you two have each other.” Margaery said passive-aggressively. The brothers broke apart then, and planted fat kisses on both of her cheeks.

“I didn’t mean for you two to actually love me up!” She shrieked, laughing and pushing them away.

\---

Fast-forward three months of painstaking work and endless decision making, In The North was ready to open, and gathering local buzz. After the showdown with Cate, they moved everything from London to California. Margaery got a place similar to the one she left behind roughly three blocks away from the bar.

“I want to be close, but not too close, you know?” She had explained. “There’s a dog park for little Joffrey right across the street too, how perfect. We were always meant to do this, I think.”

Though Jon believes the idea of a higher power to be a little silly, he decided that fate must be a real thing. He and Jon had gone from brothers to something more, to lovers and then to entrepreneurs. Margaery’s similar beliefs just affirmed his own further, and he was glad she was their business partner. He forgot sometimes, that she knew their reality, but when he remembered his heart would skip a beat. She knew and she loved them just the same. Maybe there would be hope for his family too.


End file.
